


someone like you

by Slumber



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Relationship Study, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26528890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber
Summary: So of course he loved him. How could he not?Hinata always falls a little bit in love with his setters.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 28
Kudos: 340





	someone like you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ellieb3an](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellieb3an/gifts).



> I've been thinking about this on and off since MSBY Exchange, and I'm not sure if this was quite what you meant with it but I hope you like it anyway! ♥

Izumi was the first person who tossed a ball to Shouyou. In a way, he would always be Shouyou's first love.

He was never really a setter—he wasn't even a volleyball player—but he was the first to cave when Shouyou tried to get people to join the volleyball club with him.

"I'm already in the basketball club," he'd said, "but if you really want, I guess I can help you practice sometimes."

"I'll be grateful for any ball you throw my way!" Shouyou had told him. "And, it's easy! You just have to throw the ball to me! Okay?"

Izumi hadn't really found it easy, Shouyou thinks now. He didn't realize until later that his tosses were never consistent, that they were either too high or too low, too fast or too slow. But Shouyou had always been happy to see that ball going up in the air, and he'd always made it a point to try and hit it for Izumi's sake—no matter how off its trajectory, or how hard it got. 

Because Shouyou believed, as long as he was hitting those balls for Izumi, Izumi would keep tossing them for him.

He didn't, of course. He only ever did it as a favor because he liked Shouyou, not volleyball. 

But Shouyou would always be grateful for it all, anyway.

* * *

Kageyama was the first person who knew how to toss a ball to Shouyou. 

It didn't come easy. He hated Shouyou at the start, the same way Shouyou loathed him. It was a kind of irritation borne out of recognizing something in the other that they missed in themselves—maybe. Was there ever anything in Shouyou that Kageyama wanted to have, the same way Shouyou envied so many things about Kageyama?

Kageyama had the talent, the technique, the finesse. He was tall and he was good and worst of all, he didn't think Shouyou was essential to winning. 

Shouyou would always remember the first toss Kageyama sent his way, though. It wasn't at a game, or a practice match, or even an official team practice. They hadn't even been accepted into the team yet. He'd been running Shouyou ragged all morning, as he had the last couple of mornings before it, making sure Shouyou knew how to receive his serves.

"One more," he said. "Again."

Again, again, again. Until Shouyou's arms were raw and tender from receiving the ball and his breath ran short.

"There can be no spiking without receiving," Kageyama said, and he narrowed his eyes like he could see Shouyou for the insignificant stepping stone he was toward getting a spot on the Karasuno team. 

But Shouyou worked hard enough so he could start receiving, hard enough so he could keep going. They rallied for what must have been half an hour, maybe longer, Kageyama returning every volley in a never ending game of receive and serve that neither of them wanted to lose.

It was Kageyama who surrendered first, after Shouyou dove to the ground to keep a mistimed volley in the air. That time, instead of slamming the ball back toward Shouyou, Kageyama held both hands up—his fingers ready to take the ball and toss it in the air.

He didn't need to call it out to Shouyou. He saw it happening, and even though his legs were tired and his arms were sore—even though he had run himself ragged and could not possibly have any energy left—there was really no other choice, was there?

Shouyou ran to the net and took to the air, greedy for the moment when his palm met the curve of the ball and slammed it down to the hardwood floor.

It was the first of many tosses—three years' worth of them, each one as precious to Shouyou as the first time he felt it. Kageyama was his partner, the setter who knew how to bring out the best in him, who knew how to play with him the most.

So of course he loved him. How could he not?

Even after all this time, Shouyou still likes to think that maybe he brought something to Kageyama too. You don't play three years together without leaving a mark. But whatever it was Kageyama had to learn, in many ways, he didn't have to learn with Shouyou alone. He was always, still, a little bit ahead of Shouyou—a rising star that even the Japanese National Team had taken notice of from his first year in high school. That many professional teams tried to recruit as soon as they were allowed to.

Shouyou was good, but not Kageyama-good. And that was okay. Shouyou had never shied away from the insurmountable.

But now he was addicted to tosses like Kageyama's, and he didn't want to settle for anything less. 

* * *

Shouyou never expected to receive a toss from Oikawa. 

He wasn't even in the same country anymore, and they were both so far away from home, and it had been _so many years_.

But his mother often said that people came into your life the moment that you needed them to. Shouyou just thought that, when it came to Oikawa, the moment had already passed both times in high school when Karasuno went up against Seijoh—the first because they needed to know what loss felt like, the second because they needed to know how to overcome it. 

Oikawa was the last person Shouyou expected to see on a beach in Rio, but he was possibly the best person Shouyou could have met again at that moment.

There aren't really positions in beach volleyball. Both players are expected to set, dig, and hit at any time. There was a special kind of thrill that ran through Shouyou's spine, though, when Oikawa positioned himself just so—Shouyou remembered the way this used to look from the other side of the net, the practiced, effortless way he played—tossing the ball his way so Shouyou could meet it palm-down and smack it to the ground.

He was as formidable a teammate as Shouyou remembered him being a formidable opponent, calculating and sharp, wily and clever. He knew how to bait opponents, but he trusted Shouyou to do what he did best, too. When they scored a point it might have been off Oikawa's own design, but it felt like a victory for both of them anyway. 

And he was a lot of fun to play with. 

Sure it took Oikawa a while to adjust to the uneven sand and the ever-changing wind directions, but he didn't take himself too seriously, laughing at the way beach volleyball challenged him, listening to Shouyou's advice with an attentiveness that surprised Shouyou. He wiped the sweat off his brow wearing a smile so wide and unself-conscious, not at all like the practiced ones he used to give his fanclub on the court, and teased Shouyou like they're old friends.

They were now, anyway.

Out in Rio, Oikawa wasn't his senior. He was just someone Shouyou used to play against, someone he played with then, someone who reminded Shouyou of home while he was so far away. Shouyou had never known his setting but they felt right to him, like he was spiking the tosses he needed to spike, because Oikawa knew exactly what that was.

Shouyou only played beach volleyball with Oikawa during that one week in Rio.

He knows not everyone can be so lucky.

* * *

There aren't really positions in beach volleyball—it was exactly why Shouyou wanted to train in it, after all, to take himself out of the thinking he was just a spiker—so he didn't really think of Heitor as his setter.

What he _did_ become, though, was Shouyou's partner.

Teams in beach volleyball, at least around the circuit Shouyou plays in, were fluid, low-commitment kinds of things. You asked someone to play with you, and you had the entire game to figure out how to adjust to each other. He liked that a _lot_. In the months he spent picking up games here and there, he'd learned to take care of his side of the court—to shore up a stranger's shortcomings and to let them compensate for his. 

It was freeing, but sometimes it terrified Shouyou too.

Heitor showed up in nearly the same way most of his other partners did: he asked if Shouyou wanted to play. But he stayed on, because they clicked together, because he needed to keep his sponsorships, because why ruin a good thing? Never any pressure, of course—Shouyou could find other partners if he liked, as Heitor could—but they _did_ work so well together, and Heitor was quiet and smart and different. He loved volleyball, but not in the same way Shouyou did. It was a means to an end, something he did because his father had done it too, because it was something he was good at, because he liked it fine. 

Because if he won he could propose to Nice. 

Shouyou didn't understand it, not completely, but it anchored him all the same. Because Heitor played just as hard when they were out there, and he gave it his all every time. He worked hard, if not harder, fighting to get the ball in the air—right onto Shouyou's waiting hand—for one more try, one more go, one more point.

And when Shouyou could connect with that ball, it was like he was helping Heitor get where he wanted to be too.

* * *

Atsumu was the first setter who ever wanted to toss for Shouyou. 

He almost feels guilty now, making him wait for so long. Then Atsumu sends him a ball during practice, nothing unusual except for how it happens to be at the end of a brutal rally that's been wearing on everyone. Shouyou is convinced the ball is headed toward Bokuto from the way Atsumu's positioned, but he finds a spot no one's guarding and takes to the air anyway, and in the last minute Atsumu shifts tactic, calling out his name as Shouyou connects. 

Palm to leather, ball to hardwood floor. The familiar rush of exhilaration when his feet hit the ground.

"Did you plan it like that?" he asks Atsumu later, in between gulps for air and swigs of electrolyte water. "Were you gonna send it to me?"

"No, but—" Atsumu grins. "It was kinda hard to resist when you found an opening like that."

Atsumu was the best setter during high school. He's one of the best in the V.League now. Shouyou hadn't given much thought to what being the best setter meant, really. He'd always been so much more preoccupied by the chances he could scrape for himself and the points he could score—until he plays with Atsumu now.

Atsumu never misses a toss, never sends a ball that Shouyou can't spike in perfect form. He knows exactly how to use momentum to pull his spikers' moods back up: after a blocked hit for Bokuto so he can redeem himself, after a good dig by Sakusa as a reward, when it's an especially tricky angle, because nothing gets Shouyou more fired up than getting those right the first time. 

And Atsumu always gives him the ball he needs.

Shouyou has never had so much _fun_ scoring than when he plays with Atsumu. 

He's precise with his tosses, draws the best out of Shouyou, but he's not afraid to push him either, and doesn't mind when Shouyou is the one pushing. 

"I can't believe," he'd huff, sounding annoyed if not for the huge grin he couldn't wipe off his face, "that you made me set from _that_ angle."

"Why, Atsumu-san?" Shouyou would lob back, grinning just as widely. "Are you saying it was hard to do?" 

They laugh about it after, then stay longer at the gym to work on their combos. Shouyou learned a long time ago not to be so greedy, but it doesn't take long for him to realize that he doesn't even need to ask, sometimes, to get Atsumu to set for him. He'll offer, all by himself, and then he'll do it again and again and again until they've both had their fill. 

"Will you two _please_ go home," Meian pleads when he catches them for what must be the hundredth time, turning the lights off in a bid to chase them out. "Clear this out then go or I'm going to lock you two in."

Shouyou and Atsumu share a look before Meian adds, " _Without_ volleyballs!"

"Sorry, captain!" they both say, biting down on their laughter as they clean up after themselves, rolling up the net and storing the balls and mopping the floor up. 

Meian watches them leave before he pointedly locks up behind them, waving away Atsumu's offer of treating him to dinner for his troubles. But he does warn them: "You two better be in top shape for tomorrow's practice."

"We will," Shouyou promises, glancing over at Atsumu once they've been left alone.

"How about you, Shouyou?" he asks. "Up for dinner?"

"Yeah, why not," Shouyou says, stretching his arms up and placing both hands against the back of his head. His palm's still tingling, the phantom feeling of the ball on it hasn't quite gone away just yet.

"You alright?"

Shouyou nods, but he also scrunches up his nose. "Ahh! I just wish we could've stayed just a little longer!" he admits, swinging his arms a few times to spike a few invisible balls down. "I could—"

"You could…?" Atsumu grins, unzipping his duffel bag to reveal a ball stuffed inside. 

"Oh, you _didn't_ ," Shouyou says, eyes wide as he blinks up at Atsumu, laughing. "You _didn't_!" 

"I know a park nearby we could go after dinner," he says, and when he smiles Shouyou thinks— 

Well. 

He could spike for him forever.

**Author's Note:**

> With many many thanks to Rose and tau who looked this over before posting! ♥ 
> 
> Hey hey hey~ Long time no AtsuHina! <.< >.> Thank you for making it all the way here! Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♥ and if you liked what you've read, you can [share the link on Twitter.](https://twitter.com/slumberish/status/1306989489848487937?s=20) I've also written a handful of [other Haikyuu!! fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/works?fandom_id=758208) including other AtsuHinas.


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